Belts, and more particularly conveyor belts, are typically manufactured in long strips which are spliced together in one or more locations to form a continuous loop. Due to the stresses imposed on the conveyor belts, it is important that the splice be as high a quality as possible so as to prevent, or at least delay, belt failure at the splice. Over time, a number of methods have been employed to splice belt ends together. The simplest method is the butt splice where the opposing ends of the belt are cut and then bonded together, such as by glue or stapling. Such butt splices are weak. Stronger splices are achieved when there is some sort of overlapping of the two belt ends, such as when the top half of one end and the bottom half of the other end are removed and the complementary portions of the ends are overlapped and bonded together by gluing, etc., and thereafter vulcanized with presses having heated platens. For some applications, it is desirable to form stepped splices having staggered overlapping levels, as disclosed in co-pending application Ser. No. 09/105,682, entitled "Belt Splitting Machine," which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. In addition, the belt material of the complementary opposing ends may be formed into an interleaved finger arrangement.
A number of belt presses have been designed. Typically, such presses rely on either hydraulic pressure or inflatable bladders to supply the compression force between opposing platens. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,946,541 to Thies et al. discloses a hydraulic press while U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,796 to Ertel discloses a inflatable bladder press. Hydraulic presses suffer from the disadvantages of requiring extra equipment, such as hydraulic pressure sources, and being unduly complicated. Inflatable bladder presses likewise require additional equipment, such as high pressure air supplies, involve undue complexity, and suffer from the potential for bladder failure.
In light of the above, there remains a need for a simplified belt press which can provide reliable performance for forming belt joints. It is preferred that such a press require a minimum of supply connections.